In addition to our regular slate of articles and book reviews, our Scholia special feature offers, for the first time ever in print, a selection from the English jurist Matthew Hale’s treatise on natural law. In his introduction, David Sytsma highlights Hale’s importance in the common law tradition:

The legal history of England and the United States of America is commonly recognized as following a unique path distinct from the rest of Europe. Whereas continental European nations followed the Roman civil law (Corpus iuris civilis) compiled by Justinian, England developed its own body of customary law known as common law. Among legal historians of English common law, Sir Matthew Hale (1609–1676) ranks as one of the most familiar names along with Sir Edward Coke and Sir William Blackstone. After an early career as a lawyer, during which time he served as counsel for the defense at the famous trials of Archbishop Laud in 1643 and Christopher Love in 1651, Hale was appointed Justice of the Common Pleas (1654–1658), and at the Restoration was appointed successively as Chief Baron of the Exchequer (1660–1671) and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench (1671–1676). In the judgment of one historian, he was not only “accounted by his contemporaries the most learned lawyer of the age” but was so well received over the course of centuries of scholarship that he is now known as “one of the greatest jurists of the modern common law.”

Given his importance, it is an honor to be able to offer this selection of his work now published for the first time.

Meanwhile, in the editorial for this Spring’s issue, I offer a primer for peer review in the face of a bit of often not-so-honorable etiquette in academia. The Journal of Markets & Morality has added new policies and practices in order to better serve our authors and reviewers and, where possible, minimize instances of misconduct. I write,

It is in light of this practice that the editors of the Journal of Markets & Morality conceived the idea for this peer-review primer. In the course of research, we have also reevaluated and reaffirmed our policy of double-blind peer review for reasons to be detailed herein. Additionally, certain structural issues enable and can even encourage the poor etiquette in question as well as other issues of quality that have come to our attention. In light of all this, we have added a few procedures with the hope of achieving higher quality reviews, streamlining the review process for everyone involved, and discharging our editorial responsibility with regard to maintaining a cordial and professional academic environment.

As is our standard practice, this issue’s editorial is open access (here).

Furthermore, with the publication of our Spring 2014 issue, our Spring 2013 issue (here), which was a theme issue on the subject of integral human development, is now open access.

Subscription information and prices for the Journal of Markets & Morality can be found here.

Are you perplexed about the biblical standing of natural law? This study offers an explicitly biblical defense for the existence and practical importance of natural law. If natural law is taught in Scripture, it should certainly be affirmed in Christian theology.